🔗 Share this article

During 2015, artist and activist Gustav Metzger embarked on one of his ultimate major projects. Famed for introducing auto-destructive art, Metzger had devoted his career to confronting human struggles from anti-nuclear advocacy to plant-based living. In a brief video message, he made a plea for a worldwide initiative to honor the environment.

“This is my appeal for your engagement in this international summons for a day of action to remember nature on 4 November 2015,” he declared, inviting artists and creatives to oppose the ongoing loss of flora and fauna. “Our responsibility is to help the public recall of the diversity and intricacy in nature … and by doing so creativity will explore domains that are fundamentally innovative.”

The Inception of Environmental Reflection

Thus the environmental art day came into being, a day when creatives nationwide produced pieces to the unfolding climate catastrophe. One of the curators, who supported Metzger in his final years, remembers his drive for action. “I sensed a great sense of urgency for him at the end of his life,” she says. “My advice was – we must act now. No need to pause for sponsorship or for anyone to approve this. We should proceed.”

Ten Years On

Ten years later, the initiative did not incited the mass movement across the arts that Metzger had envisioned, but organizers feel its impact can still be observed in movements like Culture Declares and Extinction Rebellion, as well as in how artists approach the eco-friendliness of their work. That’s why she is restaging it to celebrate its ten-year mark. Part of the featured creators participating now are Yu-Chen Wang and other notable figures. All participants have created visual art, shared messages, and developed pieces set to be unveiled on November 4, 2025.

Sowing Change

When speaking to the artist, she is on site in the countryside, cultivating apple trees that will create a coiled garden. Working with schoolchildren, her project is somewhat artistic and somewhat instructive. She describes, the planning and planting sessions have already involved learning about mathematics (calculating the planting intervals), biology (studying the genetic makeup), and origins (mapping the stories of how different apples came to the UK).

Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got funny names such as the Duck’s Bill. We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ crimson liquid

“Many of the apples were chosen because they’ve got amusing labels such as the other unusual varieties,” the artist notes. “We have one apple that ‘bleeds’ scarlet-colored sap. Every one carries histories attached. The historical cultivar was imported by the Romans. The Flower of Kent is the apple that descended from a tree and struck Isaac Newton’s head.”

The artist aimed the children to be more thoughtfully connected of the environment and the power we have over it. “To many of them, apples were just things you find in a supermarket, so I was urging them, next time they were out, to read the label and see their names and the source. Ideally it reads Kent!”

Artistic Responses Throughout Britain

Within the city, a participant’s work about extinction will include attendees exploring Tate Modern on a journey to find the seven major glaciers that have been vanished in modern times. Every ice sheet will be drawn on the gallery’s windows and walls using ultraviolet markers. Each discovery, a chime will sound and a reading will be held to commemorate that individual formation.

Meanwhile, up in a northern town, a creative will be putting on a free exhibition about our disconnection from the land, as well as holding a communal feast, made using organic, local produce. Over in Newcastle, a participant is sharing her environmental performance, in which local singers begin a project to use music to heal flora in Newcastle’s Jesmond Dene.

Young Insights

Similar to other artists, another participant will be collaborating with schoolchildren – on the day itself she is planning to fill a cultural venue in youth creations that express their dreams and worries for the years ahead. “Kids’ art are impactful because they’re not as trammelled as mature perspectives,” she says in her recorded message. “What children have to offer to the world is something truly special and it may provoke a awareness of obligation from us all. Children are innocent. They have concerns for tomorrow. But this shouldn’t be about worry – it should be about hope and our responsibility that they have a tomorrow.”

Tributes and Thoughts

A participant’s work also resonates for children. Drawing on past experience, his feathered initiative involves illustrating avians and then dressing up as them – and for Remember Nature day he is intending to tackle an iconic figure. He is also organizing a guided walk of the city, visiting various sites that have been part of his Pansy Project over the recent decades. That ongoing series commenced following he endured multiple occurrences of prejudice on a particular day. As a reaction, Harfleet decided to plant a pansy at the site of each occurrence and record it – the project has since grown to include incidents reported by other people across the world. “I leave the pansies there but they don’t often last,” says Harfleet. “Reportedly pigeons like to eat them, so they’re a ephemeral memorial.”

He picked the bloom not just for the obvious reason – it has long been a term of homophobic abuse – but also because its origin is the French verb, penser, to think. “It was linked to a man who is reflective, and that, of course, is a bad quality,” he says.

The intention on the event day is to sow flowers at additional sites and also refresh the memorials in places he has honored before, all the while conversing with those on the walking tour about the incidents and his personal experiences. “There’s been quite a few since I last planted,” he says with regret.

Progressing Optimistically

He desires his work – and